The trend estimate, in volume terms, for the total value of building work done levelled-off in the September quarter 1998 after rising for the previous eight quarters.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released today, for the first time, preliminary estimates for the value of building work done from the Building Activity Survey.

This publication has been introduced to provide an early indication of trends in building activity.

The preliminary survey results show the following:

Total residential building was steady following rises of 4.3% and 2.1% in the March and June quarters respectively. The latest figure was still 12.5% above the level of a year ago. Work done on new houses fell marginally during the quarter.

Non-residential building fell by 1.2% in the quarter following a fall of 1.1% in the June quarter.

The seasonally adjusted estimate, in volume terms, for the total value of building work done fell by 2.0%, but was still 5.8% above the level of a year ago.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of total residential building work fell by 4.3% to $4,707.8m while non-residential building increased by 2.2% to $3,157.7m.

More comprehensive and updated results for the June and September quarters will be released in Building Activity Australia(cat. no. 8752.0) on 19 January 1998.

The volume terms referred to above are chain Laspeyres volume measures, reference year 1996-97. This is in line with the ABS intention to replace constant price estimates with chain volume measures.

Details are in Building Activity, Building Work Done, Australia, Preliminary (cat. no. 8755.0) available in ABS bookshops in all capital cities.